6 RUCHO v. COMMON CAUSE KAGAN, J., dissenting seats, and to protect all Democratic incumbents. See id., at 503.  Using similar technologies and election data as Hofeller, Hawkins produced a map to those specifications. Although new census figures required removing only 10,000 residents from the Sixth District, Hawkins proposed a large-scale population transfer. The map moved about 360,000 voters out of the district and another 350,000 in. That swap decreased the number of registered Republicans in the district by over 66,000 and increased the number of registered Democrats by about 24,000, all to produce a safe Democratic district. See id., at 499, 501.  After the advisory committee adopted the map on a party-line vote, State Senate President Thomas Miller briefed the General Assembly’s Democratic caucuses about the new map’s aims. Miller told his colleagues that the map would give “Democrats a real opportunity to pick up a seventh seat in the delegation” and that “[i]n the face of Republican gains in redistricting in other states[,] we have a serious obligation to create this opportunity.” Id., at 506 (internal quotation marks omitted).  The General Assembly adopted the plan on a partyline vote. See id., at 506. Maryland’s Democrats proved no less successful than North Carolina’s Republicans in devising a voter-proof map. In the four elections that followed (from 2012 through 2018), Democrats have never received more than 65% of the statewide congressional vote. Yet in each of those elections, Democrats have won (you guessed it) 7 of 8